Erna Weber

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Erna Weber (born December 2, 1897 in Charlottenburg , † May 19, 1988 in Berlin ) was a German mathematician .

life and work

Her parents were independent merchants in Berlin and owned a printing company. Weber attended the Königin-Luise-Lyzeum in Charlottenburg until 1914, but was not able to take her Abitur until 1919. In 1915 she began an apprenticeship at the Animal Physiological Institute at the Agricultural University in Berlin.

From 1920 to 1925 she studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. She did her doctorate in 1925 under Max von Laue with a thesis on the selection principle and needle radiation. After graduating, she worked as a structural engineer in a civil engineering office in Charlottenburg.

In 1931 she got a job at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin-Dahlem and worked in the twin research department under Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer . In 1935, the book Introduction to Variation and Hereditary Statistics was published by Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena as her first major work . After her superior left to Frankfurt / Main in 1935, she had to look for a new job and switched to the Julius Springer publishing house in Berlin.

In 1937 she accepted a position, most recently as head of the statistical department of the "Teaching and Research" branch in Jena (Kahlaische Straße) of the Thuringian State Office for Racial Studies in Weimar with Karl Astel . She published papers on the age of marriage for women and the marital fertility of various social groups. In March 1940 she was given a teaching position for biological statistics at the mathematics and natural sciences faculty at the University of Jena . In February 1945 she was able to complete her habilitation and on July 18, 1945, she gave her trial lecture in Jena, whereupon she was granted permission to teach.

In December 1945 she was released as a former member of the NSDAP in Jena. Applications from the faculty for her continued employment were rejected. Between 1947 and 1949 she worked in Jena for the Schott and Jenapharm companies . She then moved to the Thuringian Veterinary Investigation and Animal Health Office, where she headed the statistical department until 1952.

In 1948 her basic plan of biological statistics appeared, which for decades maintained itself as a standard work and which had nine editions by 1986. On January 1, 1952, Weber was allowed to return to the Institute for Applied Mathematics at the University of Jena as a lecturer in the field of natural science and medical statistics and was appointed professor there on April 1, 1954. In 1957 she accepted an appointment at the Humboldt University in Berlin , where she worked as a full professor for mathematical statistics until 1962. With her monograph Mathematical Fundamentals of Genetics , which appeared in the series Genetics: Fundamentals, Problems and Results in individual presentations published by Hans Stubbe , she made an outstanding contribution in 1967 to the normalization of genetics after the limitations of this subject in the time of Lysenkoism .

In 1978 she was awarded the Honorary Life Membership of the Biometric Society. In the GDR she was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze in 1964 and in silver in 1972.

Already in retirement, she was still head of the probability calculation and mathematical statistics department at the Institute for Applied Mathematics and Statistics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin and from 1967 until her death she was editor of the biometric journal founded by Ottokar Heinisch and Maria-Pia Geppert . Her grave is in the Karlshorster and Neue Friedrichsfelder Friedhof in Berlin-Karlshorst .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erna Weber, Hans Grimm : Chapter 2.1. Aborted and interrupted research. In: Rainer Karlsch : Demography in the GDR. Social and theoretical aspects of the development of a scientific discipline. Institute for Applied Demography , Berlin 2007, pp. 25–30.
  2. ^ Heinz Ahrens and Klaus Bellmann: In Memoriam Erna Weber. In: Biometrical Journal. Volume 30, 1988, pp. 515-516

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personal data
SURNAME Weber, Erna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grimm, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1988
Place of death Berlin